Jen Hyde is a poet and occasional book artist. She is a collaborative publisher for ND/SA, the assistant poetry editor of the Bellevue Literary Review, and a Heart Valve Ambassador for the American Heart Association. Her work has been supported by fellowships from NYU Shanghai and The Asian American Writers Workshop, where she was a 2016 Margins Fellow. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

“Throughout Hua Shi Hua, Jen Hyde stitches the marvelous image of a yellow crane—only this yellow crane, by virtue of context, becomes tower, bird, or machine. The images become converted variously, as do her ‘generative translations’ of Chinese poets. In this debut collection, we have a lyrical quest for heritage, for language, and for poetry itself.”
—Kimiko Hahn

“These deep, clear, attentive, gorgeous poems explore Hyde’s liminal position as a half-Chinese woman living in Shanghai, and also themselves exist in spaces of transition and betweenness. Hua Shi Hua is the result of a sustained, necessary, generous, honest engagement, one the poet was courageous to undertake, and one which we are fortunate to be able to experience.”
—Matthew Zapruder

“In Chinese, 化 can mean to assimilate or to transform. Using 化 in Hua Shi Hua, Hyde teaches us how transformation is the process of growing a new heart.”
—Wen Jin